On 10/25/06, Kevin T <ktsquare(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From my
understanding, the founding of a local chapter shall be based more
on the need of
local members than relying solely on lingual or political
status of a place. Local chapters enable the local members with a legal
status in getting sponsors, communication with organization.
<chair of the chapters committee speaking>
I think that is a fair and sound summary fo what I was trying to say.
There will be some core rules for the creation of chapters, the fact
that they're not just "a bunch of people who get together on every
Sunday" but rather an "organisation that has a legal status and with
which the Wikimedia Foundation can have an agreement with" is
definitely one of them. But Sam was also right in saying that this has
to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
We are very far from having had to deal with all the possible
configurations that are going to be presented to us. We have to start
somewhere. And this is where we start. Chapters must have a legal
basis.
So to answer Ilario's question, if a Hong Kong chapter makes sense
today, it might not make sense anymore in 40 odd years. in which case,
we will reevaluate.
</end official position>
<beginning personal opinion>
On a more personal point of view, I believe that anchoring chapters
with different rationales than that of projects (ie. jurisdiction
based rather than language based) improves the cross communication
between communities who should be striving towards he same goal, and
not stop at their differences. Far from saying we should reunite X and
Y, I believe that it makes sense that there is one Belgian chapter to
start with, or one Canadian chapter to start with and that we then see
the implications of having a French-speaking and an English speaking
Canadian chapter or a Dutch-speaking Belgian Chapter and a
French-speaking Belgian chapter", to take obvious and probably
reductive examples.
Another core rules of chapters is that they should strive to achieve
the same goals as the Wikimedia Foundation, goals which, in my
opinion, transcend the borders of political or language differences.
Any chapter should have at heart goals which, while naturally biased
by the background they come from, strive to support the wikimedia
projects in their entirety, whether French, Chinese, Bambara,
Wikisource or Wiktionary.
If we're going to be a truly international organisation, I believe
this is where we should start.
Delphine
--
~notafish
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